'Walk two blocks in any direction from where we stand now and you will see untold wealth�and yet we are told we don�t have the money for a nurse in every building...' Union rally sets the stage against CPS's sabotage of Chicago's public schools as school board's credibility is in tatters...
The Chicago Teachers Union's sea of red was filling the sidewalks at the Thompson State of Illinois building prior to the march beginning down the street. Substance photo by John Kugler.A massive rally in downtown Chicago on June 9, 2015 let those at City Hall and elsewhere know that the members of the Chicago Teachers Union are preparing for another fight, and a strike if necessary, to achieve what the city's public schools deserve. More than 5,000 teachers, other school workers, and community activists marched from the Thompson Center to the Board of Trade on a sunny afternoon, remniscent of the May 2012 rally that launched the work leading to the Chicago Teachers Strike of 2012.
The confrontation was clear. Although they had the opportunity to get a one year extension on the current contract by simply offering the CTU (and the other unions) a three percent raise, the members of the Board of Education claimed there was no money, thereby putting the city on a schedule that could lead to another strike. The union has already filed an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) against the Board, charging that CPS officials are not bargaining in good faith. The current contract expires June 30, 2015.
Now that Chicago's mayor and the Board of Education appointed by Rahm Emanuel are refusing to even begin to negotiate in good faith or according to the law, the rally was a show of strength. The rally, which took place after school during the hectic final weeks of school for the city's teachers and other staff, was significant, with more than 5,000 people filling the streets adjacent to City Hall.
Union and media coverage follow below here:
Teachers from Taft High School brought their own banner and carried it along with the signs provided by the union during the massive June 9, 2015 Chicago Teachers Union rally in downtown Chicago. Substance photo by John Kugler.CHICAGO TEACHERS UNION COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT ISSUED THE FOLLOWING ACCOUNT OF THE EVENT:
CTU leads thousands in downtown Rally for A Just Chicago and Fair Contract
BY CTU COMMUNICATIONS | 06/09/2015
CHICAGO�The Chicago Teachers Union today led 5,000 teachers, students, parents and Chicago residents in the Rally for A Just Chicago and Fair Contract at the Thompson Center. The rally was followed by a march down LaSalle Street to the Chicago Board of Trade, where the crowd demanded that the city�s wealthy pay their fair share in taxes, and that elected and appointed leaders look for new revenue streams in lieu of repeating their tired mantras of �budget deficit� and �financial crisis.� The rally also provided an opportunity for teachers to let politicians and Mayor Rahm Emanuel�s handpicked Chicago Board of Education know the truth�that they are fed up with claims that the district cannot afford basic necessities for Chicago�s neighborhood schools, and that they remain embarrassed by scandals and privatization failures that have given hundreds of millions of dollars to well-connected businesses instead of schools. Learn more about the CTU fight for a fair contract and the city Chicago students deserve on the new contract website, A Just Chicago (http://www.ajustchicago.org).
�We have tried to provide solutions for them on so many different levels, but the one thing they don�t want to hear, the tough choices that people don�t want to make, is going where the money is,� CTU President Karen Lewis said to the crowd gathered at the Thompson Center.
The CTU was joined today by representatives of the Amalgamated Transit Union and a number of communication organizations, including Action Now; Albany Park Neighborhood Council; Brighton Park Neighborhood Council; Grassroots Collaborative; Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization; Parents 4 Teachers; Pilsen Alliance and others. Elected officials in attendance included Cook County Commissioner Jesus �Chuy� Garcia, aldermen Nick Sposato and Ricardo Munoz, and longtime teacher and labor activist, Ald. Susan Sadlowski Garza of the 10th Ward.
The demonstration comes after weeks of troubling revelations that have rocked the nation�s third-largest school district and led to the resignation of schools� Chief Executive Officer Barbara Byrd-Bennett, the reconstitution of the school board and counterproductive contract talks. The Board has rejected the bulk of CTU proposals�including those with no additional costs to the district�and countered with rescinding a 7 percent pension pickup and renegotiating health care premiums and co-pays with demands that would likely consume 3 percent of teacher and education support personnel salaries. It also refuses to bargain over key proposals such as removing costly police presence in schools where no written plan mandates their presence.
�You have to remember that what you�re fighting for is not just a fair contract, it is the history of fair contracts, and if we have a chance, this is it�this is the time where you have to stand up and tell them, �No, we�re not going to take that,�� Lewis said.
Contrary to the Tribune's editors and their crazy claim that Chicago needs a "Mussolini," the Tribune's reporters have been accurate in their coverage of many of the realities about Chicago Public Schools in 2015. Above, the Trib's coverage of the June 9, 2015 rally and march by the CTU.Among the CTU�s contract demands are a librarian and a nurse in every school; limits on standardized testing; enforced class size limits; and racial justice for students by way of restorative justice coordinators and more resources for vulnerable communities. The CTU continues to call on the Board to implement a full moratorium on school closings, turnarounds and reconstitutions, and for CPS to engage in joint lobbying in Springfield for an elected school board and responsible revenue sources that fairly tax the biggest profit takers in Illinois.
�When the wealthiest in our city tell us that our schools are broke, we say that our schools are broke on purpose,� said CTU VP Jesse Sharkey to the Thompson Center crowd. �Walk two blocks in any direction from where we stand now and you will see untold wealth�and yet we are told we don�t have the money for a nurse in every building.�
�We are here to deliver the message to the public of this city�that you will not sacrifice the public schools on the altars of their profit,� Sharkey said.
IN THESE TIMES ENTHUSIASM BELOW HERE:
With Thousands Marching in the Streets, Chicago Teachers Union Declares �This Means War!�
Martin de Bourmont
June 10, 2015
In These Times
Cries of �this means war!� echoed throughout Chicago�s financial district this Tuesday as teachers demonstrated against the Board of Education ahead of union contract negotiations this summer.
Teachers, Students and Community Members demonstrate in front of the Chicago Board of Trade, Martin de Bourmont,
Cries of �this means war!� echoed throughout Chicago�s financial district this Tuesday as teachers demonstrated against the Board of Education ahead of union contract negotiations this summer.
They made for a formidable sight: led by a troupe of black-clad high school percussionists and holding their fists up high, members of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) and their supporters marched on Chicago�s LaSalle Street yesterday demanding adequate wages, benefits and resources for their students, insisting that the district�s financial woes are actually a case of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) being �broke on purpose.�
The rally, which began in front of Chicago�s James R. Thompson center, served as an unofficial kickoff for the CTU�s campaign to bargain a new contract with CPS�s Board of Education, which represents 400,000 students and the country�s third-largest school district. The current contract expires on June 30.
CPS currently faces a $1.1 billion budget gap for the fiscal year beginning on July 1, leaving doubt as to whether or not it will be able to pay the $634 million due to the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund on June 30. Further hampering negotiations between the CTU and CPS is the district�s contention that Chicago teachers will need to accept a 7% pay cut along with increases in health insurance premiums.
Rather than enacting budget cuts, the CTU is demanding that the city�s wealthiest corporations pay more in taxes in order to fund smaller class sizes, less standardized testing, funding for school libraries and art classes, and increased staffing of all schools with counselors and clinicians. Teachers also demanded the protection of teachers� pensions and salaries.
Many of the demonstrators carried signs that matched the evening�s rhetoric in militancy and succinct condemnation of the Chicago city government. �Payout? No thanks!� read a popular sign. �Take the money from the banks!� �The 1% owes us,� read another. Others reminded onlookers of the sacrifices inherent in every public school teacher�s life: � �I do this for the money,� said no teacher ever.�
At the rally, teachers spoke of the increasingly harsh conditions they faced at work and their negative impact on Chicago students.
�We get [to school] at around 5 or 5:30 every single morning,� explained one teacher from Farragut Career Academy. �On Mondays, I arrive a little bit late, around six and I usually leave around five. When I go home, I work, and I work during the weekends. And now they�re going to take away 7% of my income.�
Holly Charles, a teacher from West Englewood, explained that many schools do not even have enough funding to support a janitorial staff. �I didn�t get into teaching for the money,� she said, noting that she had worked in the CPS system for 30 years. �I�m bringing toilet paper from home, having to mop my own floor,� she says. �There�s not enough money for janitors. But I bet if you head into any of the CPS headquarters, you�ll find toilet paper and clean floors there.�
Another teacher, from Chicago�s South Shore High School, said that his school�s needs went far beyond a janitorial staff. �We don�t even have libraries in the school,� he said. �We need to reduce our class sizes, [but] they�re increasing class sizes. If they increase class sizes teachers are going to be managing students not teaching students.�
Limiting class sizes was a priority for most of the teachers I spoke to. �You have one teacher for every thirty kids,� explained one teacher from Chicago�s West Side. �We don�t have enough staff. Thirty kids with one teacher is just crazy. Our special needs kids aren�t getting service.�
On May 6, the CTU filed an unfair labor practice complaint against the Chicago Board of Education, alleging that the board engaged in �reactionary and retaliatory measures� by purposely stalling negotiations and requiring teachers to bear the burden of a manufactured crisis. Citing CPS's damaging investments in high-risk bonds and a $20.5 million contract to train school principals, CTU president Karen Lewis argued that �CPS is broke on purpose,� and that the �Board has created a fiscal crisis in order to justify its continued attacks on our classrooms and our communities.�
Adding friction to the already contentious relationship between CPS and the CTU is a recent scandal involving Barbara Byrd-Bennett, the former CEO of CPS. Hired by Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2012, Byrd-Bennett resigned from her post on June 1, almost two months after federal investigators launched an investigation against her for allegedly awarding a $20.5 million no-bid contract to a former employer.
After congregating at the James R. Thompson Center, teachers, parents, students and community members marched on LaSalle Street, home to the Chicago Board of Trade, the world�s oldest futures and options exchange. The Chicago Board of Trade now belongs to the CME Group, which also includes the Chicago Mercantile exchange and is one of the world�s largest options and futures exchanges. Labeled �the biggest financial exchange you have never heard of� by The Economist in 2013, the CME Group owns derivatives and futures exchanges in Chicago and New York as well as the Dow Jones stock and financial indexes.
The union�s point was clear: the city government should return the money it lost on LaSalle street to the people of Chicago.
�Whose city?� chanted the marchers as they walked towards the Board of Trade. �Our city!� was the evening�s resounding cry.
Upon reaching the Board of Trade, Tara Stamps, a classroom teacher and city council candidate spoke not only to the concerns of parents, students and teachers, but to all Chicagoans of working-class backgrounds. She likened the Chicago Board of Trade to a group of degenerate gamblers playing a high-stakes game in which penalties are reserved for Chicago�s poor and minority populations.
�This is the Chicago Board of Trade!� she exclaimed. �They have the money. They�re the biggest gamblers in the business and they�re gambling with our babies� future! They�re jailing us out, they�re privatizing us out and they�re trying to get us out by any means necessary.�
�This isn�t just about black folks, or Latino folks,� she told the crowd. �If you are poor, or working class, they�re trying to move you out of Chicago. They don�t want us here. Well I�ll be damned if they try to move me out of my Chicago!�
Michael Brunson, a Chicago educator and the CTU�s recording secretary, took the microphone after Stamps to call for a �LaSalle Street Tax,� echoing a plan elaborated by Karen Lewis in 2014 that called for taxing buyers and sellers of futures, futures options and securities option contracts traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Options trade. Last year, Lewis argued her proposal could create $2 billion in annual revenue for the city of Chicago and more than $10 billion for Illinois, mitigating the effects of Chicago�s pension crisis.
�Every year we hear, �we have no money,� � Brunson began. But �CPS is broke on purpose! � CPS owes half a billion dollars in toxic loans. We are going to change that. This is where it is! The Chicago Board of Trade. We can get over ten billion dollars if they tax these trades.�
The rally and the subsequent march on the Chicago Board of Trade served as a direct challenge to the policies of Mayor Emanuel, with whom the CTU has repeatedly clashed over the past three years. In 2013, Emanuel administered the closing of 50 Chicago public schools�mostly in poor minority neighborhoods�for �underperformance� and �underutilization.� The previous year, Chicago teachers held the first teachers� strike in 25 years to contest Rahm�s education policies, which included extensions to the school day and the expansion of charter schools, which receive public funding but are not subject to many of the operate outside the public school system. The striking teachers also demanded better pay, increased job security, funding for arts classes and �wraparound services� that support underprivileged students including social workers, counselors and nurses.
�Show us the money, that�s what we want,� a Taft High School teacher said as the crowd prepared to march on the Chicago Board of Trade. �Open the books and let us see how broke you really are.�
Referring to the city�s elected leadership, he said, �The people of Chicago elected you. Now what you need to do is take care of the people instead of your friends�the banks and the big companies. We are Chicago, not those banks.�
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES COVERAGE BELOW HERE:
CHICAGO TRIBUNE COVERAGE BELOW HERE:
